Why Lady Gaga’s neon pink burqa may yet raise a smile

Is Lady Gaga's recent choice to wear various "Islamic" items of clothing, a shameless exploitation of orientalist fetishes to promote herself as a pseudoedgy artiste? Indeed, it is. And yet, I find strangely satisfied at the uproar caused by her neon pink burqa, because it challenges the monopoly on the meaning of Muslim women's clothing. Muslim women's clothing, apparently, can be oppressive or it can be nothing at all.

In 2009, Lady Gaga held a press conference wearing a full face covering. None of the journalists stormed out, saying it was "impossible to read her facial features" or concerned about the "true identity" of who sat before them. No, not one complained that it was "hampering communication". Why? Because she's Lady Gaga and not a Muslim woman.

Because so much of the public narrative depends on the perception of veils as inherently misogynistic, any suggestion they could be empowering is met not merely with consternation, but faux indignation at the poor brown women presumably insulted by this. Of course, Gaga chooses to wear a "burqa" (is a transparent burqa still a burqa?) when women in Afghanistan and elsewhere don't always have the luxury of choice — but they also don't have the luxury of defining the significance ascribed to articles of Muslim dress. The accusations of white privilege levelled at Gaga hold some sway — after all, it is because she is white/wealthy/famous that she goes unchallenged in her choice to cover her head or body. But there is a double standard in the treatment of white/powerful women who cover their faces versus poor/disenfranchised/brown women who do.

Where there's a veil

I don't recall a huge debate about whether Gaga's choice to wear a meat dress was her take on the meat industry.

It is telling that it's Muslim women's clothing (I use "Muslim" in the broadest sense) which seems, yet again, to be causing such a stir. And that's because the discourse on Muslim women's clothing, and its oppressive significance, is so narrowly policed, so rigidly defined, that any deviation from that script leads to accusations of sympathising with misogynistic loons who employ some of the items in question as part of their anti-women arsenal.

Now it's unfortunate for Muslim women who choose to wear some sort of veil that there are sadly a number of oppressive countries who like to dictate to women what they consider to be Islamic clothing and that the easy assumption often follows that wearing one implies support/sympathy of the latter. It does not.

The contention levelled at Gaga is that by wearing an overtly glamorous face veil, or a neon pink transparent burqa or using lyrics which appear to "glamorise" (God forbid!) aspects of some Muslim women's clothing, she is unwittingly supporting the patriarchy and insulting those women who are forced to wear the garb in question. I'm not only not offended by her choice, I'm also perturbed by the criticism she's received over it — no one has a monopoly on the significance of symbols. There is no a priori meaning hidden behind the face veil — even different Muslim cultures offer different meanings to it. To some women, it is the pinnacle of piety, to others, a modern accretion, for others still, a neofeminist choice. So if Lady Gaga wants to don a face veil and, in so doing, add yet another, American pop culture layer of significance to it, I say bring it!

I relish the fact her act subverts the monopoly on meaning typically associated with the face veil as the evil imposition of male domination. Perhaps now there'll be a little more room for different Muslim women to contribute their understanding of these symbols and in so doing, move from object, to subject in that discussion.

In the Atlantic, Allie Jones argues that Gaga donning the burqa represents a "sexualisation of Muslim women", fetishising "the women of another culture in order to sell records". In her song "Burqa", she raps "Do you wanna see me naked, lover? Do you wanna peak underneath the cover?" Although this plays into orientalist depictions, it has one significant difference and that's the idea of active versus the typically passive sexuality associated with Muslim women. It's also true that Lady Gaga sexualises everything — even lobsters. So Muslim women can at least rest easy that we are not the sole targets of her sexualising crusade.

Gaga is associating her confident sexual identity with women typically assumed to be voiceless victims. Partly, this is why people are shocked. How dare a burqa-clad woman also be a confident sexual being? How outrageous that the niqab be linked to one of the biggest American cultural icons of the 21st century.